Dartmouth begins with a win

By BRIAN FREEMAN Sports ReporterPublished January 10, 2013 - 1:42am

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Halifax Titans also victorious on first day of East Coast IceJam tournament

St. John Maple Leafs' Lain Gamba battles Dartmouth Taylor Flooring's Jesse Murphy-Hammer for the puck during the game opener of the East Coast Ice Jam at the BMO Centre in Bedford on Wednesday. (INGRID BULMER / Staff)

The Dartmouth Taylor Flooring Major Midgets got the start they wanted at the East Coast IceJam hockey tournament Wednesday night.

The metro squad dominated from the opening faceoff en route to a 4-0 shutout of the St. John’s Maple Leafs in the opener of the five-day event at the BMO Centre in Bedford.

“We performed well, we got the win and that’s what we came to do,” Dartmouth right-winger Lawrence Lyver said.

“We got pucks deep and we just played our game and good things happened.”

Lyver, Alex Webster, Josh Worthen and Austin Donlevy tallied for the winners and Brandon Dorrington turned in a steady effort to post the shutout, albeit with a considerably lighter workload than his counterpart.

Lyver got Dartmouth on the board at 4:42 of the first period. On the power play, he partially fanned as he tried to one-time a pass from Alex MacDonald but the change of pace fooled St. John’s netminder Josh Carey.

The Maple Leafs spent much of the period on their heels but Carey kept them close with a number of big stops.

He kicked out his left pad to thwart Jesse Murphy-Hamer on a breakaway and stoned Chad Bannister at point-blank range after the Dartmouth forward was left all alone in the slot.

The second period brought more of the same. Webster made it 2-0 with a wrister from the right faceoff circle at 2:21 but Carey robbed Lyver on a rebound in close and had several other standout saves.

“He played well,” Lyver said of the Maple Leafs goalie. “He kept them in the game, I think.”

Worthen found the mark on a backhander at 2:50 of the third and Donlevy’s well-placed wrist shot through traffic with 5:46 left rounded out the scoring.

“It was a tough way to start,” said Maple Leafs captain Chris Mallard, whose team flew in to Halifax at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday.

“I just think our legs were gone, from the flight this morning or maybe just because it was the first game of the tournament.

“We’re just gonna have to regroup and come back strong tomorrow.”

Titans 3, Privateers 1: In Wednesday’s late game, Jack Patterson and Patrick Stewart tallied two minutes apart in the third period to lift Halifax to a win over another St. John’s squad.

Ethan Marsh also scored for the Titans, a power-play marker in the second stanza.

Ben Cleary netted the equalizer for the Privateers two minutes into the third. But Patterson potted the winner at 8:41 and Stewart added an insurance marker at 10:51.